The Way of Holiness

This mid-19th century account of traveling to and with God went through fifty editions in the first two decades after it was published. Phoebe Palmer's much longer "Notes by the Way," published with the original text, is not included here. But included is the Preface to the book's Second Edition, where you can get a sense of how contemporary readers identified and valued Palmer's abstract representation of a pilgrim's progress. Palmer's approach is evangelical — or, as one reviewer cited in the Preface puts it, "It bears the stamp of no one particular sect." And it emphasizes the emotional intimacy of the relationship between a believer, the Bible and God, which may explain why the other reviewer cited in the Preface recommends the book specifically to "female readers."